Nibbler the Nibblonian could sense, even without telepathy, that something was troubling his humanoid food delivery unit. It's not that time of the month yet, he thought with his advanced brain. It's not relationship-related, since I haven't seen her with anyone.

"Hey, you cute widdle cwitter," gushed Leela as she dumped a helping of Kibbles 'n' Snouts into the plastic bowl on the floor. Incoherent as always, thought Nibbler. If I want to get to the bottom of this, I'll have to risk reading her mind. While the one-eyed woman was still bent over, he pointed his antenna at her and waved it about. Hmm...no, don't buy that pair of new boots, one hundred years from now nobody will want to be caught dead in boots like that…wait, those are last week's thoughts…

Leela slumped onto the couch and sighed plaintively. As if someone knew she needed company, the doorbell to her apartment rang.

"Hi, Amy," she greeted the perky Asian girl, who wore her usual pink sweatsuit.

"Hey, Leela," said Amy, stepping inside. "I saw the report on TV, and thought you might need some moral support."

"That's really nice of you," said Leela gratefully. "Have a seat wherever you want, except in the fish tank."

"Fish tank?" Suddenly curious, Amy leaned over to view the inhabitants of Leela's new aquarium. "I didn't know you liked fish for companionship as well as eating." Behind the glass surface, a six-inch-long golden fish gazed back at her with three eyes, one at the midpoint of the other two. "That's a weird-looking one," she remarked. "What do you call it?"

"That's Blinky," Leela told her. "They found him in a pond near a nuclear waste dump."

"I guess he's a mutant like you," said Amy, watching the scaly creature wriggle around the tank. "But from the looks of him, he totally has no clue. Heck, he probably thinks all fish have three eyes."

Leela smiled and nodded while pulling a bottle of Merlot from her refrigerator. "Did you know the average fish has a memory span of about seven seconds?" she asked.

"Hey, look!" said Amy in wonderment. "That fish has three eyes!"

"Did someone say fish?" came a slurred voice from the doorway. Leela and Amy turned and saw that their good friend Dr. Zoidberg had scuttled into the apartment.

"Oh, hello, Doctor," Leela began to say, when to her horror, Zoidberg plunged a lobsterlike claw into the aquarium and snatched Blinky out of the water. "Put him back!" she exclaimed in outrage.

Just as Zoidberg was about to drop the fish into his eager mouth, he noticed the third eye at the very point of its skull. Recoiling in shock, he released his grip on Blinky's tail, sending the hapless pet into a free-fall to the carpet.

"I…I…" stammered the alien physician, gesticulating with his claws. "I came this close to eating a freak fish! I could have died, or suffered some other horrible demise! Thank you ever so much for warning me, Leela."

While the cyclops rushed over to retrieve her fish from the cold floor, yet another visitor appeared at the doorstep—Hermes Conrad, grade 36 bureaucrat. "How's it hanging?" he inquired of his friends.

"Oh, hi, Hermes," said Leela as she released Blinky into his watery container. "You don't come around here often."

"I have some unpleasant business to attend to," said the bespectacled Jamaican. "Unpleasant for you, that is. For me, merely inconvenient." He looked aside at the aquarium and commented, "That's a fine finny friend you have, mon."

"That's Blinky," said Leela, and then something odd struck her. "You do notice that he has three eyes, right?"

Hermes grinned knowingly. "I have so many details in my life, I try to ignore such small things." His tone became somber. "Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the Nixon's Head administration."

Leela bowed her head slightly. "So you've heard the news, too."

"Yeah, mon," was Hermes' response. "I've known this was coming for more than a week."

"A week?" said Leela, startled. "Why didn't you say something?"

Hermes put on a sheepish face. "I was sure the Senate would vote down the measure, but I didn't count on the influence of Ted Kennedy's head."

"Well, spluh," said Amy. "He's been in office for the past two thousand years. He's no pushover."

"Two thousand years?" Leela mused. "I don't think it's been that long."

Amy shrugged. "My idea of ancient history is former boyfriends."

Leela stared earnestly at the dreadlocked accountant. "So what's the unpleasant business?" she asked, not wanting to know the answer. "Are you going to drag me off to the sewers right now? My parents don't even know I'm coming."

"No, mon," said Hermes calmly. "The mass roundup of surface mutants doesn't start for another week. Until then, you have the option of relocating to the sewers voluntarily."

Leela's eye flashed fire. "You can't round up all of us," she said threateningly. "Our numbers are greater than you think."

"Don't vent your anger on me, mon," said Hermes with a distinct lack of care. "I don't make the laws. I only complicate them." With that, he rested his briefcase on the edge of the fish tank, flipped it open, and sank his hand into the cluttered contents.

"Now what?" said Leela impatiently. "Do I have to sign a form declaring myself a member of the mutant underclass?"

Hermes chuckled. "I submitted your change of status paperwork a year ago, Leela. As of last Tuesday, the government officially recognizes you as a mutant. That's why you have to wear this from now on."

From the depths of his briefcase he drew a brown cloth wristband with an eye-shaped pattern stitched into it.

Leela's jaw dropped. Taking a step backwards, she stated firmly, "I am not wearing that!"

"Come on," said Hermes, holding out the offending piece of fabric. "All the other mutants are wearing them. It's not only stylish, but mandatory."

"It's horrible," Leela protested. "It's so incredibly tacky. It clashes with my hair. It doesn't match my wrist console at all. It looks like it was cut out of a grocery bag and chewed by a dog."

"Can I wear it?" Amy requested.

To be continued